Ketsui is one of those Cave classics without a true sequel, but which steadfastly retains its popularity after ten years. It is a 2-D shooting game (shmup) for the arcade set in the near-future.
Good:
Backgrounds for the stages are presented as a single long continuous map.
The soundtrack still stands out to this day, to the point where special moments in the game can be pinpointed to exact parts of songs.
Gameplay is very unique even within Cave's vast repertoire, encouraging getting up-close to enemies and fighting them at point-blank range when possible. The 5-chip items are becoming almost as popular as the characters and ships of the game.
Iconic sub-bosses and bosses who are referenced by other games.
Poster art that incredibly iconic and distinct (although this can be enjoyed without playing the game). Unfortunately, the artist passed away.
Bad:
Many of the graphics for the enemies are obviously rotoscoped 3-D, which can be jarring when compared with the excellent visual quality of everything else in the game.
The audio fidelity is not very good, due to the PGM arcade hardware.
Fighting the True Last Boss requires not only a no-miss (no deaths and no bombs used) run through both loops, but also a minimum score for the first loop. This game is definitely not for beginners.
Ketsui for arcade
Ketsui is one of those Cave classics without a true sequel, but which steadfastly retains its popularity after ten years. It is a 2-D shooting game (shmup) for the arcade set in the near-future.
Good:
Bad: